[FONT=tahoma]Well, we've moved a long way south, and things are getting back to normal on the gaming front. There have been 3 games over the last couple of weeks, and I've finally got around to writing them up. No maps, at present - a mixture of lack of time and Battle Chronicler playing up (any advice on that? It has only a fraction of the options for scenery it used to have)[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]The first two games were a bit ago (a fortnight ago, and a week ago), so will be more vague, I'm afraid. All the games were 2000 points[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]Anyway, game one:[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]This was my list [/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]Runelord; shield, MRoBalance, RoSpellbreaking, RoResistance, RoPreservation, RoStone,[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]Daemon slayer; MRoSwiftness, RoFury, RoCleaving[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]BSB; MRoGromril, RoResistance, RoPreservation, RoSpeed, RoFire[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]27 long beards, GW, FC, RoCourage, Determination[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]30 warriors, GW, FC[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]14 XBow rangers, FC[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]10 slayers, inc. 2 giant slayers, musician, standard[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]Bolt thrower, engineer, MRoImmolation, RoFire, pistols[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]Grudge thrower, engineer, RoAccuaracy, 2xRoPenetration[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]The vampire player had:[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]Blender vampire lord on barded steed[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]L2 necromancer on foot[/FONT]

[FONT=tahoma]50 skeletons, spears+shield[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]20 ghouls + champ[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]corpse cart[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]10 black knights, FC, Banner of the Barrows[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]5 blood knights, FC, Banner of Blood Keep[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma]Varghulf[/FONT]

The scenery for this game was ample, but the only bits that actually made much difference was a low building (in this game the dwarven mine shaft) which formed a pivot for my line; this was on the edge of my deployment zone, about 1/3 along from the left table edge. A hill in the back left corner of my deployment zone had saw some use, as did large hill opposite it.

We played the battle where you play diagonally; my rangers came in late (so I lost the scout ability, unfortunately; no vampire stuff came on late)

Anyway, my deployment was as follows:

The grudge thrower set up on the hill in the back left corner, the slayers in front of it, and the long beards and BSB on the left of the mine. The warriors set up on the right of the mine, and with the bolt thrower next to them.

The vampires (running from my left to right) had the varghulf, then the black knights, then the blood knights with vampire lord, then the ghouls and the skeletons (with the necromancer), and with the corpse cart behind the skeletons. The ghouls were opposite my warriors, with the skeletons over-lapping my line somewhat. I got the first turn.

Dwarfs 1:

My units trotted forward, and the rangers turned up late on the right flank of the warriors. The grudge thrower hit the blood knights, killing two. This meant the vampire lord was no-longer able to take look out sir rolls, and as the closest target to the bolt thrower, would have to be hit by it. He was hit! He was wounded! He took three wounds! Oh, and then he passed his ward save (4+ against shooting). Ho hum...(but then, it would have been a bit boring to kill him on turn one...)

Vampires 1:

The undead surged forward on all fronts. The magic was very effective, my opponent rolling very high. They managed to get off curse of years on the LBs, killing about 6 (I didn't want to use my spell breaker in turn one, I should have done in retrospect); I stopped everything else.

Dwarfs 2:

I think this was probably a good call, but a bit of a gamble perhaps...The undead cavalry had advanced too far, and was in charge range. The slayers charged the black knights, and the long beards charged the blood knights (how dangerous could they be, I thought). Maybe I should have dropped a GT shot on the blood knights instead. In the magic phase I dispelled curse of years, and in the shooting phase didn't do much - the grudge thrower scattered off the corpse cart, and the BT/rangers shot a couple of ghouls (plenty more where they came from, though). In the combat the daemons slayer smashed a few knights, who killed a few slayers, who (with their GWs) killed a few more knights; knights reduced to 2 with crumbling. The LBs however didn't do too well; they failed their fear test (I stupidly forgot they were immune to fear and terror, thinking they were just immune to fear, but the vampire lord caused terror, and had some doo-dad which stopped BSB re-rolls). In the combat I killed one blood knight, but lost a LOT of LBs. Hooray for steadfast!

Vampires 2:

The varghulf charged the slayers, and the infantry shuffled forward a bit more. All magic was stopped. In the combats, the Black knights were finished off, as too were all the normal slayers (only the daemons slayer and giant slayers left). I think the combat was drawn, anyway. In the other combat, my long beards didn't do anything, and were almost wiped out, but held on.

Dwarfs 3:

The rangers charged the front of the huge skeleton blob, the warriors in the flank. This opened their flank to the ghouls, but I thought I had that covered. In the shooting, the BT had nothing to shoot at, and the GT shot at the ghouls. It would have hit all of them, but alas, it wasn't to be, scattering onto the main combat (even with re-rolls!), killing about half a dozen surprised warriors and skeletons. Ho hum...

In the combats, the varghulf was wounded by the daemon slayer, but then ate the giant slayers. The blood knights finished off the LBs/BSB, and in a display of heroics, the warriors/rangers reduced the skeleton blob to the necromancer and 3 bony colleagues for no loss. Wonderful rolling!

Vampires 3:

The ghouls took the warriors in the flank, and the corpse cart charged the rangers. The black knights tried and failed to charge the GT. In the magic phase, the vampire lord resurrected one of his knights, but that was all. In the combats, the Varghulf and DS did no damage to each other, whilst in the other, the necromancer and the last skeletons were killed, the charging corpse cart just bounced off, but the flank charge coupled with poison of the ghouls killed a lot of warriors. The vampires won by a bit, but my lads held on.

Dwarfs 4:

With no movement at all, we went straight for shooting. The artillery trained on the blood knights, but only killed one or two (the champion, standard and lord were left). In the combats, the daemon slayer finally killed the varghulf. In the other combat, the rangers smashed the corpse cart, and the warriors lost narrowly but held against the ghouls.

Vampires 4:

With not a lot else to do, the blood knights charged the GT, and slaughtered the crew very quickly. The ghouls drew with the warriors, meaning I could turn them round to fight in the front.

Dwarfs 5:

The rangers took the ghouls in the flank, and the daemon slayer trotted their way too. The BT missed the blood knights. In the combat, the ghouls were wiped out.

In the rest of the game, the vampire lord and his 2 friends wheeled about and charged the BT in turn 6, which blew up, but sadly only killed the unit standard. And that was that!

It was a very messy game; the vampires were reduced to the vampire lord and blood knight champion, and myself to the rune lord, about 15 warriors, 13 rangers (they were very lucky, it seems!) and the daemon slayer. We called it a draw. I might have won slightly, I probably had marginally more points left on the table (1000 to 900, or something). However, I had no real means to stop the vampire lord, so if we had played on, I would have lost.

Points learned:

The slayers did pretty well. Immunity to fear, terror etc is a really big deal - even with LD9 you still fail things sometimes. I'm sure when the LBs charged the blood knights if they were fighting on WS 5 they would have done better (on the turn they charged they only needed to inflict one more wound to remove the annoying anti-shooting banner, and 2 more to destroy the unit, and on WS5 would have taken a few less casualties - I know it was stupid to forget they were immune to terror as well as fear, but the point still stands). With no shooting to worry about, I'll always take slayers against vampires, I just need to get some more of them!
The vampire lord was mean! Mind you against dwarfs I don't know what else they'd do - Vampires can't rely on magic working, but do have much more offensive characters. I didn't appreciate just how nasty this guy would be - I should have taken more artillery to crush him. Taking him on in combat was my only option on the day I feel.
Basically, I think this game was very winnable. Maybe, I should have won, I don't know... I took a fairly soft list, I think, but it actually performed better than I thought it would. The one big mistake I made (one which won't happen again) is under-appreciating just how nasty vampire characters are, meaning that though in general I felt fully in control, the main unit of the vampire army was really difficult to do anything about. We both had our fair share of luck, and it was a lot of fun, I think.

Game 2 - versus Brets.

I'll start this report with this statement: this was the single worst hiding I have ever had in any wargame in any system. It was a real education, I'll say that. I'm sorry I didn't take a good record of my list - there was a misunderstanding on my part; I thought it was 1500 points, not 2000, and bulked my list up quickly just before the start. I didn't think things through well, but I did put out a more expensive version of what I had originally planned, so though the rushed list might have made me lose more badly or quicker, I don't see me actually winning this one.

Anyway...

I took:

Runelord, MRoBalance, RoSpellbreaking, RoResistance, preservation, stone
BSB, MRoGromril, resistance, preservation
Thane, MRoChallenge, RoBrotherhood, GW

around 30 LB rangers, FC, throwing axes, RoBattle, Rodetermination
around 30 warriors, GW, FC
around 30 quarrelers, GW, FC

GT, engineer, 2 RoPen, 1 RoAcc
BT, engineer, MRoImmolation

The Brets had:

a killy lord on a horse
another killy lord on a horse
a BSB on a horse
a L2 damsel on foot

about 8 knights of the realm
about 30 M@Arms, FC
about 5 or 6 yeoman cavalry
6 (!) units of 10 peasant bowmen, all with banners
about 10 grail knights
trebuchet.

My 'plan' was to use the LB rangers (coupled with the MRoChallenge) to neutralise the worst unit of knights by sitting in a house and forcing them to charge it, where I thought I could hack them up very easily (no lance or horse bonuses, and then lots of short ranged throwing axes). That was as far as my plan went....I thought that if I could deal with the knightly death start of doom I'd win the game, because peasants are just rubbish. Maybe on a good day against a poor opponent it might even have worked...

Anyway, the main feature of the battlefield was a large village in no-man's-land in the centre. There were woods and hills on the flanks, which the Brets used to good effect to shield their knights.

We were playing blood and glory. The brets had 9 unit standards to my 3 (plus a BSB each). Not the luckiest of scenarios to roll, and I had fully deployed before my opponent had run out of bowmen. Ho hum...

My deployment was simple. The artillery sat on a hill on my left flank, the warriors with the characters in front of it slightly to the right, and the quarrelers in a longish line next to them. The LBs scouted to the outskirts of the village.

The Brets put the knights of the realm and the yeoman cavalry on their right (my left). Then there was a wood and all the bowmen in a long line, with the trebuchet behind them. Then the M@Arms with the wizard deployed more-or-less opposite my long beards, and the grail knights deployed out far on the right with all the horsey characters.

Dwarf turn 1

Well, my LBs occupied a fine looking town house (everything going to plan so far...), and the warriors shuffled around a bit. The GT scattered off the trebuchet, hitting the only bit of ground nearby not full of peasants, the BT missed the archers (couldn't see anything else), and the XBows shot 2 peasants, but not enough to force a panic check.

Bret turn 1

The cavalry swept around the flanks (Hurrah, I thought, my cunning plan is working, the knight deathstar is just where I want it, and will be forced to charge the LBs next turn...), and the M@Arms marched into the village. No magic, but the shooting was deadly. In a massive hail of arrows the bolt thrower was slain, and over half (!) the warriors were killed by one trebuchet hit. I was not a happy dwarf.

Dwarf turn 2.

Well, I still thought this cunning plan was might work...So the GT shot the knights bearing down on it (ignoring the yeomen), and killed 2. Not enough... The quarrelers, shot some M@Arms, but their wizard had a magical doo-dad giving them all a 5+ ward from now on. That was annoying.

Bret turn 2

Now I realised the game was up. Grail knights are immune to psychology. I got the peasants to charge the LBs instead. Better than nothing, I guess. I even killed a couple with throwing axes on the way in. The grail knights pulled off a very long charge on quarrelers (they had a magical banner to make them charge further, I think - they charged further than I imagined they could). I managed to shoot one on the way in. The yeoman charged the GT.

In the combats, needless to say the quarrlers routed. The knights didn't pursue (the board edge was very close) and angled for another charge on the warriors. The yeoman killed 3 of the GT crew for no loss. No LBs were killed by the M@As, and I inflicted around 10 wounds (very good rolling), however about 6 of these were passed with some very lucky ward saves. Oh well.

Dwarf turn 3.

The game was up. The warriors charged the yeomen, and the LBs filed out of the building. They threw some axes at the M@As, killed some, but no-where near enough to force a panic check. The warriors wiped out the yeomen, but not before they killed the last gunner. They over-ran towards the knights of the realm, to hopefully get them away from the grail knights. Fat chance...

Bret turn 3

The warriors were charged by the knights of the realm in the front and the grail knights in the rear. The LBs were pelted with all manner of projectiles, and about 6 died. My runelord challenged the Bretonnian duke to a duel, and even wounded him, but it was too little too late, all his warriors were slain, and he was chased down in the pursuit. That took all my banners with them (except the one with the LBs), and I hadn't even deprived the Brets of 1 of theirs. This was the worst battering I've ever had, to be honest - even other bad defeats I've thought I could have won at some point, but this one was just an utter trouncing. Well done James, that one was an education!

OK, so what went wrong? Well, a lot, really. James, the victor, was charming in victory, and we talked a while about what went went wrong and how to do better. He plays a lot of tournaments (and used to have dwarfs, in 7th ed anyway), and his advice was really sound and helpful.

Do NOT base your army list around a one trick gimmick. In the game against vampires I was slapped around by the blood knights. I though the best way to weaken super cavalry was through cunning use of buildings (so depriving them of their biggest assets - lances and barded steeds). The idea wasn't stupid, I don't think, but sinking over 1/3 of my points into it was silly, especially as the knightly death star was immune to psychology anyway. Take advantage of buildings if the situation arises, but do not plan for it. Never again!
Far too much anti magic. The Bretonnians skipped all their magic phases (I had so many dispel dice); a common rune smith would have done just as well, when a cannon or organ gun would have been really handy.
Not enough artillery. This was the biggy in James' opinion. A decent amount of artillery could have won that for me - an organ gun, a more accurate BT and a cannon would have helped no end.
Not appreciating what the Bretonnian book can do. If I knew just how far a tooled up knight lance could charge, I'd have re-formed the Xbows in turn 2 - 6 deep they might have had a slim chance, but 3 deep they had none. Not appreciating the biggest threat was immune to psychology was stupid, and not realising how much damage a bucket load of rubbish archers and a trebuchet can do. A MRoGrungni would have been really handy!

Anyway, this post is already really long. I'll do the orc and goblin post later today, probably around lunch time.

Well done to those who got this far, and any more tactical advise eagerly sought.